Telephone, internet and the NBN
Modern Australia has come to depend upon high-quality, reliable telecommunications. Unfortunately, the digital divide between rural-regional Australia and our cities is growing. With the roll-out of the NBN, we now have families being forced onto satellite and wireless NBN almost within sight of Adelaide’s CBD. The high-quality telecommunication services promised to regional Australia via the NBN are not being fully met, and the roll-out has been fraught with problems. After Centrelink, the NBN has been the second biggest source of complaints I have received from the community.
With mobile phones replacing landlines, reliable mobile coverage is critical to the safety of our communities, many of which live in high bushfire risk areas. During the summer of 2016-2017, some households in the Adelaide Hills suffered from power outages and lost access to telecommunications for over five days. We were just so lucky that there was not a bushfire during those days of isolation, as I dread to think of what might have happened if a bushfire had occurred when some communities had no telecommunications.
As a result, I am working hard to encourage the Government to consider reliable 24-hour standby capability for mobile phone towers in high-risk bushfire areas, especially where our community is highly concentrated.
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Fighting for the ABC
I am a staunch defender of an independent, sufficiently-resourced ABC.
Our national broadcaster plays a critical role as a cultural resource for the nation, and as a source of quality, reliable and independent reporting. In a time of globalising culture and declining resources for investigative journalism in the public interest, maintaining a strong national broadcaster is more important now than it has ever been at any time since Australia’s Federation.
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